This invention relates to the field of tools used in the railroad industry by trainmen, carmen, and switchmen for the application and release of the most common type of hand brakes used on freight and passenger railroad cars today. Application means to set the handbrake to the stop position where the car will not move. The word release, in this context, means to put handbrake in position where the car can be moved. This type of handbrake is called a vertical wheel handbrake. It may or may not have a quick release handle, but most do. It is usually located on the end of the railroad car at a height of about seven feet from the ground to the outside circumference or rim of the handwheel.
The application and release of handbrakes remains today to be one of the major causes of injuries to railroad employees in the operations department. The inventor hereof is a conductor with 33 years of service on the BNSF Railroad, and is aware of the long-felt need for a safer handbrake arrangement and procedure on railroad cars.
The application or release of handbrakes, in most cases, requires the employee to climb up the car side ladder and move around to the end ladder and platform to reach the handbrake. This is because the handbrake is too high off the ground for an employee of normal height to reach the handwheel and still be in compliance with the railroad safety rules.
BNSF Safety Rule S-13.6.3E relates to the application and release of handbrakes by an employee standing on the ground. Most railroads in the U.S., and many abroad, have a similar rule. The rule reads as follows:
S-13.6.3 Position to Operate
A. End-Mounted with Brake Steps or Crossover Platform
If the car has end-mounted brakes and a brake step or crossover platform:                1. Stand on the brake step or crossover platform to operate hand brakes.        2. Apply hand brakes by standing on the left side of the brake with your left foot on the ladderrung and your right foot on the brake platform.        3. Grasp the ladder rung or top handhold with your left hand and operate the brake with your right hand.        
B. Side-Mounted                Operate side-mounted hand brakes from the ground if the brake mechanism is within easy reach        and you can safely operate it without straining too much and risking injury.        
C. End-Mounted without Brake Steps or Crossover Platform
If the car has end-mounted hand brakes without brake steps or crossover platforms:                Do not operate the hand brakes from the ground unless proper safeguards are provided, such        as blue signal protection.        To operate the hand brakes, stand on the car or on the ground at the side of the car.        
D. Horizontal Wheel or End-Mounted, Inward Facing
Stand on the car to operate horizontal wheel (staff) hand brakes and end-mounted, inward facing hand brakes.
E. Vertical wheel hand brakes may be operated without getting on the railcar if:                1. The car remains stationary.        2. Both feet remain flat on the ground and outside the rail.        3. Elbows are slightly bent during operation.        4. One hand can hold onto the grab iron while the other hand is used to operate the brake wheel.        
The handwheel of the handbrake is manufactured from flat steel, press-formed into shape, with the outside wheel rim and spokes formed into a semicircular ‘C’ shape, as shown in cross section in FIGS. 7A and B. The handwheel shaft is connected to a small gear inside the brake housing, which turns a larger gear that the handbrake chain wraps around when it is applied. The handbrake also has a locking mechanism that maintains the brake in the applied position. Almost all vertical wheel handbrakes are equipped with a quick release handle that releases the brake without requiring use of the handwheel. However, the handbrake can only be applied with the handwheel.
The handbrake chain is connected from the brake to the air brake appliances that apply and release the brakes on the car. When not applied, the handbrake chain must remain loose so that the air brakes properly apply and release as needed.
Extension handles are used in some industries to allow operation of valves with increased leverage. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,848,194, issued to Santorineos describes a valve tool and adjustable wrench combination tool used to operate large cutoff valves. These cutoff valves also have a circular handwheel with a shaft connected to the valve body. The handwheel in this instance is round, instead of C shaped like the handwheels on typical railroad cars. The Santorineos extension tool used on the wheel has two jaws of the same basic shape and the same height. Santorineos teaches that the tool is intended and designed to be used on the valve handwheel centered on the rim between two spokes. Such a design and method would have several serious problems that would arise if, hypothetically, it were attempted to be used as an effective handbrake application and release tool. First, it does not have any feature that would allow it to operate a quick release handle. It also cannot be used at the junction between the inside handwheel rim or circumference and the spoke of the handwheel. This is an important element when dealing with railroad handbrakes because of the aforementioned slack present in the brake chain when the brake is not applied. Further, most operations employees do not regularly carry an adjustable wrench in the course of their normal duties, nor is such a wrench part of the normal set of tools kept on the engine of a train. A handbrake tool needs to provide ability to adjust the angle between the tool head and the handle as needed for the different operations of applying and releasing the train handbrakes. Also, vertical handbrakes are almost always operated in a vertical overhead position with one hand. Given such position, the Santorineos tool would not function as a practical and effective railroad handbrake extension tool.
U.S. Publication No. 2010/0109357 by Lofley discloses an extension tool with a telescoping handle. The tool includes a spring-biased switch, and an inner handle section that slides relative to an outer handle section. A spring-biased switch may be depressed to move the inner handle section relative to the outer handle section. When the switch is released, the inner handle section is locked in place with respect to the outer handle section. The tool features a hooked end that may be used to engage a handwheel on a rail car. However, even in its collapsed state, the length of the tool in Lofley's disclosure would make it highly cumbersome for employees to carry on their person. In fact, Lofley teaches storing the tool in a specialized elongated channel in a railroad car. Adding such a channel to a railroad car to accommodate the tool, and removing and replacing the tool after each use, could prove costly and inconvenient. In addition, Lofley's tool would not allow a handwheel to spin freely, because the shape of the hook on the tool would interfere with the handwheel's motion. The Lofley tool also provides no way of operating a quick-release lever on a handbrake. As a result, Lofley's tool would require a user to spend an undesirable amount of time rotating the handwheel.